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Monday, July 23, 2012

Mastering Essential Math Skills (Review)

This is my very first review for the Schoolhouse Review Crew Team. I am so excited to be a part of this amazing team of bloggers!

My first review features a great math program called Mastering Essential Math Skills. It is a program
written by Richard W. Fisher, who has over twenty years of teaching experience. He designed these books to help students
become algebra-ready in less than one year.

I received two books:
Mastering Essential Math Skills: Book One for Grades 4 -5 plus the accompanying DVD and Mastering Essential Math Skills: Geometry. They are recommended for grades 4 -5 but, in my opinion, could be used for advanced 3rd graders or struggling 6th graders as well.

Here’s my first impression: The workbooks are not fancy. They are straightforward with no pretty
pictures dressing up each page. I
thought this would be a negative for my lover-of-pink-things nine-year-old daughter, but she was fine
with it! She was focused on the problems and didn’t seem to notice what wasn’t
there.

Each worksheet has a review section, two speed-drills wheels,
the new concept practice section and one word problem. Notice there are only 10 problems in the new
material section on each page. Fisher
believes that the student does not need more problems than that if they know
the new material. He believes, instead,
that the student should move on to a new concept once they have mastered each
level.

The speed drills wheel is meant for you, the teacher, to
insert a function sign and number in the middle of the circle. For example, if you insert "+2" in the middle of
the circle, your student is to add two to each number in the circle and put the
answer in the space provided. This
should be a timed drill for warm-up. I really
like this, as it offers some great mental math practice.

He then suggests that your students work on the review
section and then watch the DVD for the new material, or if you choose not to
purchase the DVD, you can then teach the new concept at this point.

Fisher is a no fluff, get-straight-to-the-point kind of
teacher. The DVD includes an
introductory teaching session by Fisher himself for each new concept. Each lesson has him briefly talking directly
to the students, “Be sure to have your notebook and two pencils ready to go.
Always come to class prepared.” The
screen flips to a whiteboard, where your student will see only the problem
itself being worked out. They are to
copy along with him as he writes on the whiteboard.

After a very quick, five-minute lesson, he tells them to
work the problems in the book, remembering “the right side is the right way”,
meaning always work from the right side of the problem to the left for an
accurate answer. He then ends his
lesson, your student pauses the DVD, and gets to work in the workbook itself.

My daughter is nine years old, a rising fourth grader, and
not a lover of math. When I told her we
were going to be doing this new math program, she was less than happy. For her first lesson, I had her get a
notebook and pencil and sit in from on the computer and follow along to his
lecture. Fisher moves through each
session very quickly, and Abbey had a hard time copying the problems down as
fast as he did. To avoid the
frustration, I allowed her to pause the DVD and continue once she had caught
up. By the third lesson, she no longer
had to pause the DVD, as she had learned to copy faster and keep up with
him. She had adapted and overcome, and
was really quite proud of herself. I saw
her self-esteem improve in just a short time.

While this program calls for twenty minutes a day, I was
unsure if that meant my daughter should be through with her lesson in twenty
minutes, or that I should only allow her to work for twenty minutes on the new
concept. Because I didn’t want her
getting too frustrated, I chose the latter.
While she would be very close to finishing each day after that time,
there was only one day that she was able to completely finish the
worksheet. That being said, in just one week’s time I saw
her computation speed increase tremendously.Repetition and review, along with the new concepts building upon one
another, made her stay sharp and improve.

One of the best features of the book for my daughter was the
fact that the solutions to all of the new concept problems were in the back of the book. This created a self-correcting system for
her. She would work her problems and
then quickly look in the back of the book to see if she got them right or
wrong. She absolutely loved this aspect of the program!

Book One: Grades 4 -5 covers the following concepts:

Whole numbers

Fractions

Decimals

Percentages

Integers

Geometry

Charts and graphs

Problem solving

Ratio and proportions

Probability and statistics

Number theory and algebra

Graphing on number lines and coordinate systems.

The subtitle to Math Essentials is “20 minutes a day to
success.” I love Richard Fisher’s
teaching system and I would recommend this math program to anyone looking for a
straightforward math curriculum that rapidly builds upon each mastered
concept.

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Mastering Essential Math Skills for Grades 4 -5 can be
ordered here for $15.95 for the
workbook only; $33.95 for the workbook plus the instructional DVD. Mastering Essential Math Skills Geometry is available for $11.95 per workbook.

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· To see what other Schoolhouse Crew Review Members thought of this same product, click here.

***Disclosure: I received this product free of charge in exchange for writing and posting this review.